She's a bookstore manager at the end of her rope. He's a single dad back in town after his grandfather's death to inherit her shop. Gianna Marchesi is about to be out of a job at her small-town bookstore. After Philip Tang, the owner of Tang's Terrific Tomes, dies, his grandson decides to sell off the store. Desperate to convince him otherwise, she asks him to work with her until the town's annual book fair before making his decision. Dominic Tang has just moved back to his hometown of Crabtree Point with his young son in tow. Having just inherited his grandfather's bookstore, he decides to sell it off and leave quickly to avoid the ghosts of his past. But he can't bring himself to leave after meeting the bookshop's manager. Will she convince him to stay, now that he's finally found home?

Sixteen-year old Harper Brooke, who has never experienced love, has a crush on Steve Andrews, the tall and handsome boy who just moved into the house opposite hers. A twist for her or a tragedy for Steve struck. Due to a national lockdown, his divorced mother, Caroline, who works as a nurse has to leave their suburban town for the big city where the virus is more serious. Before she leaves, she asks the Brooke family for one favor; if they can invite Steve for dinner everyday until she returns. Start: April 2022 End: July 2022

As an up-and-coming social media influencer, Sadie Dwyer has had enough of the expectations thrust upon her and is finally ready to start living life on her own terms. Goodbye cushy corporate finance job, goodbye Los Angeles, and hello fresh start. Sort of. Back in her hometown of Seattle, sure, she has her disapproving parents breathing down her neck, but she's also free to explore what truly makes her happy-creating content and helping others. And it just so happens, her first project is closer than she ever expected. Rhett Morris hadn't envisioned such a ray of sunshine tenant moving into the apartment above his bar-not when he's still haunted by the dark days of his past-and it's clear from the get go that he and Sadie are complete opposites. Like night and day or oil and water. Does his twin brother care about that though? No, not even a little. Soon enough, Sadie is helping the brothers vamp up their bar's presence on social media, forcing the two to become a regular part of each other's lives. The more time the two spend together, it's clear the walls they've built up around their hearts begin to fall away. But it's hard to know if the connection between them is real, or if it's just the latest trend.

Three friends travel to a temple to ask Buddha for more wealth, love and good fortune. Featured humor story, and 2016 winner of a Watty.

|| WATTYS 2021 SHORTLIST || Hindsight isn't always twenty-twenty. A head injury has left a critical gap in seventeen-year-old Allyson's memory, so she barely recognizes her little sister, Lindsay, who's grown sullen and antisocial. What happened to the silly and fun girl who used to call Allyson her best friend? The answer starts to take shape when Allyson unlocks an instant messaging app and delves into the archived conversations. The more she learns about the person she was before her accident, the more she wants to stop reading. She's ashamed of the way she treated Lindsay, but despite her efforts to reconcile, Lindsay remains distant. She seems to be harboring some terrible secret herself. Allyson needs help to solve the mystery, but she's afraid to challenge her parents' fragile pretense of normality. And Noah, the boy Allyson doesn't remember falling for the first time, is reluctant to dig up the past. Her only choice is to find the courage to meet her former BFF-a stranger who knows all the unsavory details. Allyson will have to own her lies and accept one heartbreaking truth if she's going to keep her family from falling apart. |Cover design by Phillip Hilliker: www.philhilliker.com. Illustration from postermywall.|

[WATTYS WINNER 2022] What's it like to have everything you ever wanted? To be utterly, ridiculously, completely HAPPY? Pretty worrying, actually. *** In this Watty Winning (!!) standalone sequel to "All Good Things", we visit Alice, her family and friends at the All Good Things cafe. A lot has changed in 5 years. Her marriage is back on track and steamier than ever... at least when there isn't a kid within earshot. Fortunately, the youngest is in the smelly grip of puberty himself and just wants to be alone. Their daughter, the entrepreneurial prodigy, went off to university only to return disillusioned by life, love and Kierkegaard. Good thing the cafe is still afloat... just about. It's hard to make ends meet when you're trying to change the world, one plant-based latte at a time! Just as things are starting to look a little dire, Alice becomes an unwitting TikTok sensation and kids all over the city start copying her moves. Now, a corporate chain wants a piece of the action and Alice will have to decide whether she can stomach a return to the soul-suck of corporate life in order to keep her dream alive. [[70,000 words]]

"When I tell you that he hates me, you'll probably assume it's because he's a jerk...but you'd be wrong. He's not a jerk. I am." --- Several years ago tragedy struck Emma's home, leaving her broken... like a cup with cracks spiraling and slithering around the edges. Slowly, bitterness crept in like tar, hardening between each fracture to resemble a deceitful wholeness. She became a monster, and targeted her venom on the sweetest person she could find: Trinity Nixon. Too bad the boy Emma longed for was Trinity's brother. Now, as Emma fights to win the heart of the boy who despises her, she's forced to hide her demons. She paints her fragile cup in pinks, yellows, and oranges - all the colors of the sun. She paints on a smile, and an unusual sense of humor, so that the world will view her as bright and cheerful, when in reality she's breaking. But she's completely unprepared for the acidic truth that melts away the tar, demolishing her shell, and awakening the Emma White buried deep inside. --- Book 1 in The Dismantled Pride series *Story was previously titled "Faking It"

All the sister wants is hair. Please find the extended Summary inside.

Going through my pictures, I went to the one that I had just taken, and the phone slowly slipped out of my grasp. What had escaped my notice before is that the couch I had taken the picture on was against a window, which showed the backyard of the house. But in this picture, it wasn't an empty backyard. No, behind my smiling face was another one, outside the window. It was his face. Covered with a black ski mask, watching me. *** All 19-year-old Layna wanted to do was forget about the guy that broke her heart, and move on with her new boyfriend Brian. But instead, she unwittingly attracted the attention of a stalker. Someone who had been watching her every move for a month, plotting and planning for the perfect moment when he could take her. What Layna never would have expected was that when he finally kidnaps her, she would have to undergo "The Test". The Test that the girls before her had gone through. The one they failed, and payed heavily for. Will she pass The Test or will she die like the others?